1.No one fromJersey Shorelooks the same onJersey Shore: Family Vacation.
Plastic surgery is an open conversation, breasts done and then redone, faces lifted into Kardashiana.
2.The men actually look much stranger than the women.
Credit: MTV
He eats pepperoni but not crust, the meat not the bun.
in parody of TV-chef nitpickery.
Ronnie looks the most hilarious, his tips less frosted than frostbitten.
He looks like if Vin Diesel was Guy Fieri.
The scariest transformation, though, is the lack of transformation.
3.And the Situation, oh boy, oh gosh, oh wow, well.
Mike was one of the twoJersey Shorecast members that even people who never watchedJersey Shoreknew about.
That cultural memory underscores how sidelined he felt, by his roommates and the series itself.
This tells you how boring things got there for a while.
It was thus impossible to properly enjoy the final season in any meaningful way.
The fun Cabsa heah!
stuff felt so empty.
The sorrowful sober drama felt like a halfhearted recovery memoir stapled to a frathouse photo album.
5.Jersey Shore: Family Vacationbegins with an extended prologue.
The cast gathers together in small groups of two or three, preparing to reunite in Miami.
But the Situations situation beggars easy description.
He is engaged in a tax-evasion case with, like, the American government.
They even have the nickname The Situation in the paperwork, Mike tells us.
The United States v. The Situation.
He mayneverbe able to come here, atall, is how Vinny describes the Situations predicament.
But the weirdest thing about the Situation onFamily Vacationis that he seems to have two distinct voices.
8.Why wasJersey Shoreso popular?
No explanation has ever sounded quite right.
It was controversial, and casually sexy in a way that made sex look like a goofy farce.
This explains why it wastalked about, but it doesnt explain8.4 million viewersfor the third season premiere.
And that was practically the peak.
So the stars of this show were aspirational specifically because they were reprehensible.
Christ, thatdoessound like Trump.
9.Required reminder that Vinnywas recently tweetingat our president about the science of climate change.
10.Why isJersey Shoreso fun to write about?
This was a great reality TV cast, maybe, a feat of social engineering.
Anyone could suddenly start a fight with anyone else.
A couple people were genuinely funny and a couple were genuinely sad.
11.People also choose to transform into cartoon versions of themselves when they drink alcohol or use social media.
Both those vices can make a writers career, or break it.
13.Sammi has decided not to join theFamily Vacation.
The poor Sammi doll gets brutalized throughout the premiere.
She falls off a kitchen counter, and her eyeball rolls across the floor.
14.It sounds almost inhuman to say that the most compelling person onFamily Vacationis definitely Ronnie.
Pauly D has a great life that would seem empty if he wasnt obviously having so much fun.
But Ronnie actually has something to lose and actually seems capable of losing everything for the most ridiculous reasons.
WhenFamily Vacationstarts, he is leaving his seven-months-pregnant girlfriend behind.
She knows my lifestyle, he explains vaguely, She knows theres always gonna be the girls.
He gets angry when people bring up Sammi.
He talks a lot about how much he used to hate the Situation.
His opening-credits catchphrase is, This might not have been the best idea.
15.I have to just zoom in for a second and explainwhyRonnie says hes angry at Sammi.
Shes not here, he tells Deena.
She doesnt have our back.Imhaving a kid.
Shes seven months pregnant.
16.Family Vacationis a pretty okay reality show I will watch occasionally.
Like, Nicole seems to be struggling to find Snooki.
I cant believe this new series will be half as successful as the original series.
So its a brand deposit for MTV, which hasalready ordered a second season.
17.Its like, a weird era, says JWoww.
